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Well, had 3 PR2s. Traded one (that I paid $500 for w/ footswitch) for an '82 Super Champ! One of the remaining PR2s is absolute mint w/ footswitch. Good story. Probably will sell it at some point. Keeping the last one. Bought off eBay from Music Dungeon NY for $850 w/footswitch. Had good nos tubes & Mesa Boogie-branded 150watt 12" 8ohm Emi speaker. Took that speaker out (now have 2 of them - good speakers) and put in an EV 12L. (Amp wasn't heavy enuff as is). May put in a '66 Jensen c12n with original cone. Bought 3 new oem Fender PR2 covers. Read all of Stratopastor's website and FDP Rivera info (tho don't think Paul really designed it). Luv the solid, no-expense spared pine cab. Really quality-made amp, tho some don't care for the sound. Ok, that's all for now I guess.

This is what a spectrum analysis looks like of my PRII - playing a clean 3rd fret barred G chord, as consistently as I could on a Mex Strat neck pickup, while winding down the mid control from 10 to 1. I knew the mid control on a traditional Fender tone stack affects the whole spectrum but I didn't know it did this... (unless there's something wrong with mine!)

Hi Iversen... sorry to reply so late. Yep, that's pretty much it, but it's not for a wide respone - just a response with few spikes in the upper midrange. The irony is, my band has too many people on holiday (vacation) right now, so I can't really test it yet!

So SP, how are PRIIs regarded in Merry Ol' England? 'Bout the same as in the US? Are PRIIs & the other Fender Rivera amp range as well-known in the UK as the more famous Fender amps? Are PRIIs scarce in the UK & the other countries in Europe? Prices the same as in the US? (There's even more ?'s if these aren't enough, bro.)

(a) 'bout the same as in the US
(b) no
(c) Here in Europe there aren't as many older Fender amps in circulation as in the US. My guess would be that Rivera-era amps here are in the same proportion to pre-'82 Fenders as the proportion found in the US. However there are more Rivera-era Fenders in Germany and especially Sweden than you might guess from the population size, which makes me think Fender had a particularly clever sales guy in that territory around '82-86.
(d) Prices on PRIIs in the UK tend to be the same numbers as in the US, but in £ not $. The prices are therefore actually higher. I think that's true for most US-made gear.

Hey SP, Apologies for the delay in replying to you (life happened). Thanks for the UK & Europe info on Fender Rivera amps. Want to visit England one day, so have always been interested in the UK view of Fender gear. Thank you again, much appreciated!

Btw, from your profile it seems as if you like solid-state rectifier amps (except for perhaps the Electar amp). If this is true, would you please tell me what are some of your reasons for this? (Interested because I consider you the PRII authority.)

Hi socal - no need for an apology, life certainly does happen. Let me check - I think it's happening to me right now - yep....

The solid-state thing is pure random and I don't have enough experience to have a preference. If my first quality amp had been tube-rectified, who knows, I might have hated s/s rectification. I played a friend's PRRI lately (tube recto) and loved it. As it happens the Electar is s/s too, being 1990s and not the 1940s amp it is trying to reference.

In general s/s rectification has more punch and doesn't 'sag', so you get a harder-hitting sound but none of the compression effect, which some love, when playing loud.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has inserted a sag resistor... how did it behave? what value did you use? (resistance and wattage)

I have to go back a number of years now to recall my gigging days, but think I ran both about even, maybe 7 on volume and 5 on master. Currently my settings are V2.5, T5, M6, B5, R4, L0, M2.5, P5. These are my "condo-closet settings". :-)

I've been experimenting (after owning the amp for 17 years... duh). The amp gains extra highs, when the master is turned up. v=4 m=10 is the same volume as v=10 m=3 but the latter sounds dull compared the former. The extra harmonics come through at the cost of a little more noise. Also (and I guess obviously) the presence control has a lot more effect when the master is high.

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